Organizer: Barry Sautman, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
Chair and Discussant: Dru C. Gladney, Asia-Pacific Center, Honolulu
With one sixth of PRC territory, rich resources, borders with six states and a dozen ethnic minorities who officially constitute a majority of the population, Xinjiang is a main arena of contention between the Chinese central government and ethnic-based separatists. The relationship between Xinjiang and the center is thus significantly determinative of the continued cohesion of the Chinese state. Drawing upon documentary and field work of scholars from political science, law, economics and anthropology, the panel will examine the Xinjiang-Center interface to determine the degree to which Xinjiang and its peoples are integrated into the Chinese polity.
Two papers will look theoretically at Xinjiang’s integration. Sautman will consider which of two contrasting models largely derived from European experience are more salient to the Xinjiang case, the internal colonialism model, advanced by sociologists, or the ethnic autonomy model, taken from international law. Becquelin will discuss the transition from an imperial model in which governance was affected through traditional elites and aimed at maintaining a flow of extracted resources to an assimilationist model that depends on state investment and the in-migration of Han.
Two other papers will treat Xinjiang’s integration empirically. Chang will focus on two modes of fostering integration, the construction of centrally-controlled instruments of power and the emergence of the pillar industries of oil and gas and cotton. Ren Hong will analyze her survey results concerning the self-identification of Han migrants to Xinjiang, particularly those in the oil fields, and their adoption of elements of local Islamic culture.
Xinjiang: Internal Colonialism or Ethnic Regional Autonomy?
Barry Sautman, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
Many scholars outside China who study the microprocesses of inter-ethnic co-existence in China’s minority areas note the ethnic imbalances of wealth and power within these regions and infer that their relationship to the center resembles that of metropole and colony. This "internal colonialism" view purports to show that, as in many multi-ethnic states, an ethnic division of labor and spatially unequal distribution of political and social goods are the result of a fundamentally exploitative relationship between the center and periphery.
In contrast, the Chinese state and scholars maintain that the country’s longstanding system of ethnic regional autonomy provides significant benefits that do not accrue to areas that are not designated autonomies. Some scholars outside China agree that, while ethnic regional autonomy in China is not as encompassing as the Chinese government asserts, neither is it "fake." Rather, in at least those "soft" areas of governance, minority area administrations do exercise "real" power.
This paper examines the question of whether China’s minority areas, particularly Xinjiang, are internal colonies or "genuine" autonomies. It places this question in international comparative perspective by looking at the work of sociologists and anthropologists on internal colonialism and of international legal scholars who, based upon a number of cases, have adumbrated a spectrum of delegated powers that can characterize an autonomous area. The paper draws conclusions about the relevance of its findings to the political treatment of inter-ethnic relations in China by scholars and policymakers outside the PRC.
Xinijang and the Chinese State
Felix Chang, Foreign Policy Research Institute
This paper will demonstrate how Beijing has attempted to pacify Xinjiang’s ethnic and religious minority groups through the combined use of state institutions, economic policy, and international diplomacy.
China’s main state institutions in Xinjiang include the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), People’s Armed Police (PAP), People’s Liberation Army (PLA), and Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC). After a spotty thirty-year pacification record in Xinjiang, the Chinese government has somewhat improved its ability to use these government-run organs to encourage and enforce pacification. For example, ethnic and religious minority groups have been allowed greater participation in relatively non-critical organizations, like the CCP and, to some extent, the XPCC. However, in all critical units and organizations (those entrusted with weapons), the Han Chinese still dominate.
In the economic realm, since the 1980s, Chinese leaders have understood that one of the best means of subduing opposition is economic prosperity—not only in eastern China, but in Xinjiang as well. As a result, China’s economic policies have created a managed economic boom in the province’s cash crop industry, especially in cotton. However, in strategic industries (those vital to national interests), such as oil exploration and refining, the Han Chinese remain preeminent.
Finally, Beijing’s diplomatic efforts in Central Asia and the Middle East have always had an eye toward reducing the support that Xinjiang’s separatists receive from abroad. China has been particularly successful in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan where the operations of exile organizations have been severely curtailed. However, this outcome owes as much to these countries’ poor geographic positions, their desire to access Chinese markets (and escape Russian dominance), and the relatively concurrent interests of China and Russia in Central Asia as to the skill of Chinese diplomats.
Whether Beijing intentionally coordinated the use of these three elements is not the point. Rather, the importance lies in the combination of these elements, which has appeared to produce a workable framework that could potentially contain the separatist movement in Xinjiang. Furthermore, the combination clearly demonstrates that a common understanding of how to deal with the region’s restiveness exists across governmental bodies at the center as well as in the province itself.
From an "Imperial Model" to an "Assimilationist Model" of Colonization in Xinjiang: New Patterns and Mediums of Xinjiang’s Integration by the Centre
Nicolas Becquelin, French Research Centre on Contemporary China, Hong Kong
This paper is based on the hypothesis that the patterns of new central policies since the beginning of the nineties have radically changed the position of Xinjiang in the centre-periphery relation. Originally, Xinjiang’s function was to supply the core area with primary resources, supported by a political model based on the superposition of administrative structures, articulated with a mediation role of the traditional power structure.
But the policies put in effect since the emergence of new Central Asian states reflect new mediums of control over the territory, especially in the southern sub-region: large structural investments preparing to an influx of ethnic Chinese, empowerment of the direct vessels of centre—instead of the provincial apparatus—distinct expansion of the military and paramilitary sphere, and gradual predominance of the ‘segregationist’ principles against the "integrative" ones in societal management. All these elements point towards the implementation of an "assimilationist" model.
Xinjiang’s position in the regional space has undergone a mutation as well. A "spearhead" function towards neighboring countries is implemented both by the economic structuration of northern Xinjiang, and by the foreign policy towards Central Asian states and their coveted energy resources. The nature of the link between the autonomous region and the Centre reflects this mutation, Xinjiang being no longer the backwater of the Chinese empire, but turning into the spearhead for the extension of China’s sphere of influence in Central Asia. Therefore, changes in Xinjiang reflects more a process of peripheral homogenization by the Centre than a strengthening of its traditional Empire.
Xinjiang Han Identity and Ethnic Integration
Ren Hong, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
This paper studies identity issues in Xinjiang concerning the formation of Xinjiang Han identity and ethnic integration in the context of the Han and Islamic cultures in oilfields-related cities. The emitic part employs surveys. The first tests the hypothesis that after living half a century in the melting pot of Xinjiang, an Islamic milieu, Han immigrants from different parts of inner China tend to identify more with Xinjiang than their old home in inner China. More than the duration of time exists in the formation of this imagined Han community. Since Xinjiang is a remote, less developed frontier region with an alien indigenous culture, Han immigrants should have had less psychological inclination to identify with it. Moreover it would be more reasonable for them to identify with the specific oasis they live in as their Uygur neighbors do than with a territory greater than most European countries. The second hypothesis is that ethnic integration in social networks is still low, though it tends to be higher in mixed communities. This test of the social distance between the Han and the Muslim minorities provides a concrete picture of the extent to which they trust and identify each other. An etic perspective is taken by examining the features of Xinjiang Han culture such as Xinjiang Mandarin, art and literature and lifestyle, in relation to the Islamic culture, with mainly field research data. The formation of this Xinjiangren identity of the Han affects the power relationship between the central government and the province and that in the territory between ethnic groups. Low ethnic integration on the personal level alongside colorful cultural blends in lifestyles raises interesting questions for further research.